The Pearl

Here goes another post that is exactly what I created this blog for. I don't really have a point starting out, but will probably have found it by the end of the post.

The Pearl (of Great Price) is part of a Biblical simile for "the Kingdom of Heaven". Jesus spoke a lot of these kind of similes. Usually, I've read it and glossed over it. I've even paused and thought about it for a few minutes, trying to understand the whole simile. But mostly, it has been one of those things I knew, but didn't think much about. Then last night, I was talking with a friend and he started talking about a burden he has. You know, the kind of thing you know something nees to be done about and you just can't get out of your head. He was actually very articulate about it, though he kept thinking that he wasn't making himself clear. It was all about this deep thing he wanted people to understand. A very Contemplative kind of thing (though he didn't use that word) about the nature of life and God and relationships.

As he was talking, I started to get this impression of the pearl and the story that when a man finds it, he goes and sells everything he owns so that he can buy it. And it seemed to me to make sense finally. This was the reason the Kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl or great price that when a man finds it he goes and sells everything he owns to buy it. My friend had seen the pearl and was so desperate to have it that nothing would be more valuable. He would cut away everything in his life to possess it. And he knows that others would value it as he does if they could but find it! He has understood the meaning of life in a quite literal sense. Imagine that! It wasn't so hard to figure out afterall! Perhaps others have seen it in the mud and dirt and kicked right over it without catching its ethereal glint because they are so preconvinced that the meaning of life is far more complex and/or elusive.

What's more, as I realized this, I instantly started to apply it to myself and a moment of clarity struck me where many things made sense...in a gossamer kind of way, like a break in the clouds on an overcast night reveals objects in the sudden moonglow that fades as quickly as it appears. I have also found this pearl, but while he was still marveling over it, I had long since run off to gather the means to buy it. This has taken a lot longer than I expected, and in the process I had almost forgotten that I had come here simply in order to sell what I owned and gain the pearl!

So that's what this was about...I remember the pearl. And just as he was cutting away, selling what he owned, so was I. But I still didn't have enough. Now what remained to be sold was far harder to unload and far harder to part with...In fact, I hadn't even considered it a possession. It was just something that has always been there, like my hair, or shirt. But now, I realize it may have some value...perhaps much more than I anticipated...afterall, it is among the last to go and therefore the bulk of the price is in hand. Since value is in the eye of the beholder, though it gain a pittence in the market, that pittence, hardest to come by and the last that is needed to gain the pearl, makes the sold object the most valuable of all!